Paris plugs into rent and ride

The Autolib scheme will include vehicles like Toyota's Prius hybrid and the economical Citroen C1. Photo / Supplied

Here is a scene from the near future. Arriving at the Gare du Nord in Paris by Eurostar, you discover that, as usual, the taxi queue seems to stretch halfway back to the ChannelTunnel.

No problem. You dump your bags into the boot of a self-service electric hire car and, braving the Parisian traffic, drive yourself to your hotel for only €7 ($12.50).

From next October, Paris will become the first metropolitan area in the world to experiment with an extensive system of self-service hire cars.

The Autolib scheme - based on the successful Parisian bike-hire scheme, Velib - will extend beyond the French capital to 41 suburban towns.

The cars, about the size of a Mini, will be available for €7 for the first half hour. Signing up to the scheme will cost €10 a day, €15 a week or €144 a year.

"Autolibbeurs" will pick up a car from one of 700 docking stations in Paris and leave it in a spare place at any other docking station - there will be 1000 altogether.

Each car will have a radio, a GPS route-finding system, and an on-board computer to direct the driver to docking stations with spare places.

The socialist Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, said similar but smaller schemes existed in the Netherlands and in La Rochelle, western France, but Autolib would be "a world first on this scale".

His centre-right opposition and even his Green allies on the Paris city council remain unconvinced.

The Greens are worried that the scheme will increase the number of cars on Parisian streets, rather than reducing traffic as Delanoe claims.

Centre-right councillors are concerned it could prove an expensive white elephant.

More than 20,000 Velib bicycles have been stolen or vandalised since the scheme began in July 2007. So what is to stop people stealing the 3000 far more expensive Autolib cars?

Much of the initial risk is being carried by Bollore group, the conglomerate that bid successfully to run Autolib.

Owned by billionaire French tycoon Vincent Bollore, it is already a world leader in developing electric cars and the lithium batteries that power them.

The Autolib cars will be a four-seat variant, built in Turin, of the group's Blue Car introduced in 2005.

Bollore hopes a successful Autolib programme in Paris will attract the attention of other large cities, and help break down psychological and technical barriers to electric motoring.

- INDEPENDENT